Happy New Year guys! It is 2019, and it is time to do it bigger and better than last time.
Guess what? We are back again with the Big 5 daily, your number one source for a quick round-up of the latest in African and World Tech News. We begin!
The Tony Elumelu Foundation has once again opened its doors to applications from start-ups and entrepreneurs for funding.
Now in its fifth year, the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme is a $100 million commitment cohort to identify, train, mentor and fund 10,000 African entrepreneurs, as well as generate at least one million new jobs and create at least $10 billion in new business revenue across Africa. The deadline for applications is March 1, 2019.
BitPesa, a start-up for digital foreign exchange and payment, has raised $2.2 million in a bridge round, per SEC filing. Although, it’s not clear who the backers are, the funding, however, was a combination of debt and equity.
The Nairobi-based BitPesa was pursuing to raise a total of $2.5 million but came short of the target by $288,896. The new round brings the total disclosed amount raised by BitPesa throughout 2018 to at least $7.23 million.
In another funding news, South Africa’s African Leadership Academy (ALA), an education institution has raised a fresh $28.19 million Series B. The new fund came from long-time backer – Omidyar Network, according to their SEC filings.
Iflix, a video streaming service provider has sold its remaining shares in Africa to Econet Group’s, ‘Kwese’. In a bid for Iflix to double down on its efforts in Asia, where it has an upper hand against Netflix, Iflix had already sold a part of their shares and now, they have sold everything. What we are not sure of is the size of the deal but Kwese Iflix has coverage in eight African countries – Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zambia and Zimbabwe — while plans are in the pipeline to expand to four other countries.
Japanese transportation conglomerate, Subaru Corporation is willing to fund Abisoye Ajayi’s Pearls Africa Foundation with $50,000 to teach more disadvantaged girls how to code. But there is a clause to the fund that is — ‘voluntary individuals should raise $50,000 first so as to match up the donation’.
Abisoye, a computer programmer was recognised by CNN for her work in trying to alleviate one of Nigeria’s major predicaments – child education – especially for disadvantaged girls in Lagos. If you want to donate to her cause, you can do that here.
…and with that, we round up today’s Big 5 Daily. Till tomorrow.